Numbers 9:21

21 Sometimes the cloud stayed only from dusk until dawn; when the cloud lifted the next morning, the people moved. When the cloud lifted, day or night, the people moved.

Numbers 9:21 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:21

And [so] it was when the cloud abode from even unto the
morning
The whole night, during which time they rested in their beds:

and [that] the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed;
whether [it was] by day or night that the cloud was taken up, they
journeyed;
whether at morning or midnight; for sometimes, as Aben Ezra observes, they travelled in the night; whensoever their sentinels gave notice that the cloud was taken up, even though at midnight, they arose and prepared for their journey; and by this it is evident, that the appearance by day and night was the same body called the cloud, though beheld in a different view, in the daytime as a cloud, in the nighttime as fire.

Numbers 9:21 In-Context

19 Sometimes the cloud stayed over the Tent for a long time, but the Israelites obeyed the Lord and did not move.

20 Sometimes the cloud was over it only a few days. At the Lord's command the people camped, and at his command they moved.

21 Sometimes the cloud stayed only from dusk until dawn; when the cloud lifted the next morning, the people moved. When the cloud lifted, day or night, the people moved.

22 The cloud might stay over the Tent for two days, a month, or a year. As long as it stayed, the people camped, but when it lifted, they moved.

23 At the Lord's command the people camped, and at his command they moved. They obeyed the Lord's order that he commanded through Moses.